


Do It Right

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Series: The Pacemakers [12]
Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Admiration, Battle, Bittersweet Ending, Character Death, Collateral Damage, Engineering, Fatal Errors, Father Figures, Flashbacks, Ghosts, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Pace Mates, Pride, Unexpected Visitors, Visitations, instability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-07 05:49:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4251759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: "I know what I saw..."</p><p>
  <em>“Hey, Huff. How are you?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Not too good,” Huffer answered cautiously after a long silence, unsure of what to say to an apparition.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do It Right

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ayngelcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ayngelcat/gifts).



> Based on Ayngel's headcanon that Huffer thinks the ghosts of lost Bots are roaming the Ark.
> 
> Also based on inkand_paper's headcanon that five or six Minibots form a pace, by definition "a company or pack of mules" (due to the Minibots' charming natures).

Fuse and Eruption were sitting on a table, swinging their legs back and forth almost in sync. Huffer halted as soon as he saw them, wondering why they had chosen _that_ table: the one where he and his teammates usually sat.

“Hey, Huff,” Fuse called, grinning widely. “How are you?”

“Not too good,” Huffer answered cautiously after a long silence, unsure of what to say to an apparition.

“Oh? That’s too bad. Come sit!”

“I…don’t want to.”

Fuse laughed, shaking his helm. “C’mon, my mech, you’ve probably been working all day, right? Course you have; they take you for granted. So come rest up.”

Huffer wavered for a few more kliks before slowly moving toward them and sitting on the part of the circular bench furthest away from them. Eruption frowned a little, but Fuse simply reacted by scooting closer. Huffer cringed further into himself, hugging his arms against his chest. Finally Fuse’s smile dropped in puzzlement as he turned, throwing one leg over the other side of the bench so he was straddling it, facing Huffer.

 _Don’t look. They’re not real_ , Huffer told himself. Even with his spark racing and his ingrained sense of being a realist fighting a losing battle against fear and paranoia, constructive curiosity was something he had a hard time ignoring.

“Don’t be scared,” Eruption spoke for the first time, his voice low and gruff just the way it was before.

Huffer’s helm jerked up and around, his optics huge. “No,” he hissed. “You can’t _ever_ say that again.”

Eruption simply leaned his chin into one hand, studying him critically. Huffer stared unblinkingly back, denting the backs of his hands as he folded them together and squeezed, riding out the entire series of scenes.

—

The entire ground tilting below them, the walls visibly shuddering. Smoke blasting from multiple fissures. Alarms throbbing beneath Eruption’s forced holler.

“Fraggit all, if the Cons keep boarding, we’ll have far too much weight on this interceptor!”

“ _Dead_ weight; that’s a little more satisfactory,” Fuse called back, baring his teeth in a poor semblance of a smile as he pulled himself out from under the body of the mech he’d just killed.

“Ha!” Huffer choked out as he struggled to catch himself on one of the side bulkheads. “Not if they keep slipping on their tractor beams’ hold! There’s a pull on opposite sides of the ship now, front _and_ aft!” As if on cue, the ship dipped further forward, the following drag coming with a spike of heat.

“That’s a different pull,” Eruption disagreed. “That’s gravity.”

“You bet it is!” Brawn agreed as he wedged himself through the nearly destroyed doors at the end of the hall.

“Brawn,” Huffer burst out in relief, repeating the name in worry immediately after as he took in the energon spattered thickly across his pace-leader’s forehelm and right audial.

“S’nothing, Huffer!” Brawn brushed him off right away. “You and ’Rup need to get to the engines and make sure they can hold up in a crash landing.”

“ _Crash_ landing?!”

“We’re crashing on a planet! Fuse and I’ll watch your backs, now go and check the engines!”

When it came to Brawn, Huffer knew some things others didn’t—like _that_ tone. Brawn was afraid, and somehow that fueled Huffer to bolt down an adjoining hall with Eruption at his side. Even so, a primal howl very nearly jerked him back. He clutched at Eruption’s shoulder, his denting grip demanding something his mouth couldn’t. Eruption said nothing in turn, shrugging off that grip and using his own to steer Huffer by elbow to the engine room.

The entire ship was now juddering and rattling with deep throaty groans. Huffer did his best to ignore it and directed, “’Rup, open that panel and tell me what lights are blinking and what buttons you’re pressing, okay? I need to make sure these energon generators are stable.”

“Structurally or chemically?” Eruption questioned, pressing panel buttons experimentally.

Huffer shot him a glance from a few yards away as he ran his hands along the surface of one of the massive tanks. “Both.” Sighing, he added, “These tanks are made to be handled by larger mechs, but of course there seems to be no engineers present, forcing us to do the work.”

“Lazy ornaments,” Eruption commented. Despite everything, Huffer barked a laugh.

“At least we’ll do it right.”

If he was going to speak further, it was overshadowed by a series of sharp snaps from above.

“What did you press?” Huffer called worriedly at the same time Eruption started, “The orange lights—”

Clamps starting to release the tank, his friend and potential pace-mate trying to belay the computer order, the program lockup. The weight of the tank as it continued down onto him.

The only thing that made him resist blacking out was the realization that the clamps had been ripped out of the wall, along with the scaffolding they belonged to. When he turned his helm to look, he saw Eruption pinned to the floor just as he was. But there was energon…the only way to tell where the puncturing beam ended and Eruption’s armor began…

After several attempts at getting Eruption’s attention, cursing and screaming until his vocalizer cut out, Huffer startled when Eruption spoke just three words, the last words he heard before the revival so many years later.

—

“I did exactly what you told me to,” Eruption’s ghost said simply.

“What, like _not_ telling me what buttons you pressed?” Huffer mumbled mournfully. “Like trying to freeze the command you’d already started instead of just letting me take the brunt of it? You know how strong I am; I would’ve been _fine_.”

“What he’s referring to is when you said ‘At least we’ll do it right,’” Fuse cut in. “He did it right by not taking any chance, by at least _trying_ to save you.”

“You’re one to talk,” Huffer snapped. “Brawn woke me up here on Earth and told me that he’d gone online and found you on top of him. _You_ tried to shield _him_ from the Cons? That’s laughable. You knew it would never work and you knew there was no need for it.”

“The need for it was that Brawn is a pace-leader and if you see a chance to protect one or make him proud, you take it,” Fuse countered.

“Make him proud?” Huffer spat. “What you did is give him nightmares about losing you. Him and the rest of us. Come to think of it, I could be in a nightmare right now. How else can you be here? Fuse, Eruption, can you answer that? You must be a dream.”

“You know you don’t believe that,” Fuse sighed.

“You don’t believe they’re actually here, do you?”

Huffer leapt to his feet in alarm when he heard Brawn speak from behind and to the left of him.

“Fuse and ’Rup. You know they’re not here,” Brawn repeated, his voice brittle. Another tone Huffer recognized: grief.

“Yeah. Yeah, I know,” Huffer said quickly, receiving a long squeeze on the shoulder.

 _I do know, Brawn, I know what I saw. But I’m going to shake it off. I’m going to make you proud_.


End file.
